I saw a Facebook status update earlier today from a former student, and I have to say that she’s one smart cookie. She may be just 19 years old, but she has more common sense than a lot of adults more than twice her age.

Her status related to having to sit and wait for a car accident to be cleared away. The ambulances and police were still there working to take care of those who were in the accident. She commented about how others who were sitting and waiting were also busy honking their horns and otherwise being rude. She also commented about how those same folks, even though they were being inconvenienced, were having a better day that the folks in the wreck.

How many of us have reacted the same way? Whether we’re running late or whether we’re just so caught up in ourselves we aren’t paying attention to anything else, we’ve all become frustrated by having to sit and wait for an accident to be cleared or for construction workers to do their jobs or for a new driver who’s taking his/her time. Basically, we all need to just chill.

Accidents happen. When they do, they will cause disruptions. It’s just something we have to deal with. Honking your horn isn’t going to make the emergency personnel work any faster. Sitting there either cursing under your breath or blatantly complaining aloud isn’t going to make anything happen any faster. Instead of spending our time sitting there, frustrated and aggravated, wouldn’t a much better use of our time be to be thankful that we weren’t in an accident, and even if we are late, we’ll at least get where we’re going without taking a detour to the hospital? And after we give thanks for our good fortune, it wouldn’t hurt if we offered some prayers for the safety of those who were involved in the accident.

It’s easy to forget sometimes that the world does not revolve around us. There are other people out there, and many of them have worse problems than we do at the moment. Even when their misfortune interferes with what we want to do, we need to be polite and thankful that we aren’t having the same, or a worse, misfortune of our own.